U.S. Default Would Not Be Unprecedented | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty

U.S. Default Would Not Be Unprecedented | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty: "During its 235 years as a sovereign entity the United States has defaulted on three separate occasions … and has also intentionally liquidated debt via inflation."

"During the 1933 banking holiday declared by President Franklin Roosevelt immediately after his March 4 inauguration, the federal government refused requests for interest payments in gold, remitting only currency instead. Congress later ratified this action by formally invalidating gold clauses….

Meanwhile, as reported in The Economist (2011, June 23), the US Treasury failed to redeem $122 million of Treasury bills on time after another debt ceiling debate in 1979. This episode was purely a technical default, arising from systems issues…."

How to Get Real Spending Cuts | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary

How to Get Real Spending Cuts | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Budget history is flush with promises of cuts some day in the future — but some day never actually comes. This is especially true when budget savings are anticipated not from actually eliminating programs, but from making government 'more efficient.'"

"Republicans should not get hung up on seeking any particular amount of spending cuts. The dollar amount matters far less than getting the structural and institutional changes that will actually bring down the size, cost, and intrusiveness of government in the future.

Republicans should push hard for a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution — and not one that simply requires a balanced budget, but one that includes meaningful spending limitations. If they can't get the two-thirds vote that such an amendment would require, they should at least insist on a statutory spending cap. Republicans should also insist on fundamental structural changes to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

In the end, this is not really a debate about budgeting or the size of the national debt. It is a debate about whether we will have a limited constitutional government or a European-style social democracy. Winning that debate will not be a question of whether there is an agreement to cut $2 trillion over ten years rather than $1.5 trillion. If Republicans get an extra $500 billion in cuts on paper, but leave the structures of big government in place, they will find out down the road that nothing has really changed."

RealClearMarkets - The Truth About the Debt-Ceiling Fight

RealClearMarkets - The Truth About the Debt-Ceiling Fight: "We have been told that failing to raise the debt ceiling would precipitate a 40% cut in government spending. Since most of what the government does is illegitimate, that would not be unreasonable at all, actually, but even on the Tea Party critics' own terms, the numbers tell a different story. If the debt ceiling is not raised, it would represent a 16% decrease from Bush's 2009 budget request of $3.11 trillion, decried by both the right and the left as overspending.

It would represent a 26% cut in government spending from Obama's 2010 budget request"

"To go back to Bush-level spending would require $0.70 trillion of borrowing until the end of 2012, around which time, revenues would begin exceeding government expenditures."

Um, uh, ah: In praise of verbal stumbles. - By Michael Erard - Slate Magazine

Um, uh, ah: In praise of verbal stumbles. - By Michael Erard - Slate Magazine: "A University of Rochester lab published a paper this spring showing that kids over 2 were more likely to pay attention to an unfamiliar object if the speaker said 'uh' before stating its name. Presumably, this tactic gives children a leg up on parsing an adult's speech. Take the example of the mother who says to her child, 'No, that wasn't the telephone, honey. That was the, uh, timer.' The 'uh' indicates that there's a word coming up that might be new and unfamiliar, so extra attention is required."

Man Uses Phone Glitch to Bond Out of Florida Jail - FoxNews.com

Man Uses Phone Glitch to Bond Out of Florida Jail - FoxNews.com: "The phone system charges inmate accounts for calls but refunds the money if the call doesn't go through. But the system was reimbursing inmates twice for incomplete calls.

Authorities say Stone repeatedly made calls and hung up until he had more than $1,250 -- enough to bond out of jail."

A Pretense of Regulatory Reform - Gary Galles - Mises Daily

A Pretense of Regulatory Reform - Gary Galles - Mises Daily: "Sunstein wrote, 'Since the 1970s, milk has been defined as an 'oil' and subject to costly rules designed to prevent oil spills.' But the EPA has now concluded the burdens were unjustifiable, and given dairies an exemption saving them $140 million a year. Unfortunately, rather than demonstrating that Americans no longer need worry about abusive regulations, it illustrates the opposite.

The fact that a clearly nonsensical and costly policy persisted for decades, despite multiple 'reforms,' reveals that almost no attention is actually given to outdated and overly burdensome regulations. But when public outrage becomes severe, a few idiocies must be recognized and sacrificed to pretend regulatory responsibility. Once such a minimal reform diminishes outrage, Americans will again stop paying much attention to the regulatory bureaucracy, and the constraints on abusive regulations will once again shrivel."

Mystery Inmate in U.S. Refuses to Reveal Name - FoxNews.com

Mystery Inmate in U.S. Refuses to Reveal Name - FoxNews.com: "A mystery man believed to be his 70s has been locked up in a Utah jail for more than three weeks and has baffled investigators because he refuses to reveal his identity or provide any details about his life."

Why can't he keep is privacy? Shouldn't the 5th amendment cover this?

"Harris said the man was arrested July 1 in the underground police parking garage, about 45 miles south of Salt Lake City. He said an officer spotted the man peering into city vehicles. The man was asked to leave several times but refused and was arrested."

3 weeks in jail for trespassing?!?!?

Lying about Libya - Ryan McCarl - Mises Daily

Lying about Libya - Ryan McCarl - Mises Daily: "Simply put, what was sold to the American public as a humanitarian intervention morphed almost immediately into unreserved support of one side in Libya's civil war and a commitment to overthrowing Libya's existing government."

"In Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, among other places, we have chosen sides in distant conflicts and showered our favored groups with weapons, military training, legitimacy, and cash, only to end up going to war against these same groups just a few years or decades later.

We supported the Mujahideen, which included many future members of the Taliban, during the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s; we supported Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s; and we largely normalized relations with and sold weapons to Gaddafi's Libya during the George W. Bush administration."

Could You Modify It ‘To Stop Students From Becoming This Advanced?’ | Cato @ Liberty

Could You Modify It ‘To Stop Students From Becoming This Advanced?’ | Cato @ Liberty: "Khan’s programmer, Ben Kamens, has heard from teachers who’ve seen Khan Academy presentations and loved the idea but wondered whether they could modify it “to stop students from becoming this advanced.”

This attitude is a natural outgrowth of our decision to operate education as a monopoly. In a competitive marketplace, educators have incentives to serve each individual child to the best of their ability, because each child can easily be enrolled elsewhere if they fail to do so. That is why the for-profit Asian tutoring industry groups students by performance, not by age. There are “grades,” but they do not depend on when a student was born, only on what she knows and is able to do."

A(nother) Bad Month for Obamacare | Michael F. Cannon | Cato Institute: Commentary

A(nother) Bad Month for Obamacare | Michael F. Cannon | Cato Institute: Commentary: "a survey by McKinsey & Co. found that up to 30 percent of firms may respond to Obamacare's incentives to drop health benefits by — get this — dropping health benefits."

"children on Medicaid were refused appointments by 66 percent of specialists and had to wait 22 days longer for an appointment than kids with private insurance. The main culprit is Medicaid's price controls, which one survey reports 24 states plan to ratchet down even further.

Obamacare expands coverage mostly by cramming another 25 million Americans into that program."

"Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal literally tried to sell an appeals court on the idea that the individual mandate isn't all that oppressive because Americans can choose poverty as an alternative to complying.

Before another appeals court, Katyal implicitly admitted that, if the mandate were deemed constitutional, Congress could force Americans to buy non-health care products too, like long-term care insurance."

"Medicare's chief actuary announced that under reasonable assumptions — as opposed to those contained in Obamacare — the law increases Medicare's unfunded liabilities by trillions of dollars."

Kathmandu, Nepal image - Cast-off Netbooks send home snapshots of 'afterlife' (photos) - CNET News

Kathmandu, Nepal image - Cast-off Netbooks send home snapshots of 'afterlife' (photos) - CNET News: "They sent refurbished Netbooks to people in developing countries. The researchers set up the computers to record location and take pictures, and send the data home to MIT. The Netbooks carried stickers explaining the project in the local language."

This sounds like paying poor people (with a netbook) to give up their privacy (or even voyeurism). :-/

DSK and the Pernicious "Perp Walk" | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary

DSK and the Pernicious "Perp Walk" | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary: "The 'perp walk' — in which suspects are ritually displayed to the media, trussed up like a hunter's kill — has become common practice among prosecutors. But it's a practice any country devoted to the rule of law should reject.

'Perp walks are pernicious devices,' writes law professor Ernest F. Lidge, 'they humiliate innocent defendants, taint the jury pool and titilate the public.' Too often, they're 'used by prosecutors to build careers.'"

Global Warming and Global Food Security | Patrick J. Michaels | Cato Institute: Commentary

Global Warming and Global Food Security | Patrick J. Michaels | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Global surface temperature rose about three-fourths of a degree Celsius in the 20th century. U.S. corn yields quintupled. Life expectancy doubled. People got fat. Global warming didn't cause all of this, but increased atmospheric carbon dioxide directly stimulated plant growth. Further, greenhouse warming takes place more in the winter, which lengthens growing seasons. With adequate water, plants then fix and yield more carbohydrate.

While doing my dissertation I learned a few things about world crops. Serial adoption of new technologies produces a nearly constant increase in yields. Greater fertilizer application, improved response to fertilizer, better tractor technology, better tillage practices, old-fashioned genetic selection, and new-fashioned genetic engineering all conspire to raise yields, year after year."

"Indur Goklany, a much-published scholar on the consequences of global warming policies, recently calculated that in 2010 alone, diversion of grain to biofuels (like ethanol) caused nearly 200,000 excess deaths in the developing world because of increased prices."

Buying Can Reduce Giving | Psychology Today

Buying Can Reduce Giving | Psychology Today: "On some days, people walking across campus were givent he chance to donate to the American Cancer Society.  On other days, participants were given the chance to purchase a can of Red Bull for $2.50, and they were told that $0.50 would be given to the charity.  They were also allowed to donate additional money.  When only a donation was requested, about 80% of the participants gave money, but when there was a chance to purchase a drink, only about 20% of people gave money.  Even when including the amount of money that would be raised from the sales of the Red Bull, the charity got more money overall when there was no product for sale."

Wisconsin state smoking ban marks first anniversary | New Richmond News | New Richmond, Wisconsin

Wisconsin state smoking ban marks first anniversary | New Richmond News | New Richmond, Wisconsin: "Sometimes there is a shift in patrons, but in general we have so many more people that don’t smoke and who like clean air and are willing to go and spend what little money they have"

If that is true, then the market would provide sufficient smoke-free restaurants and bars to serve them.

"There is no liberty or no constitutional law that gives people the right to smoke"

Unbelieveable!

"In the big picture, we’re not going to stop testing someone’s water to see if it’s OK to drink, we’re not going to stop going in and testing their food and doing health inspections on the food, so why would we not do that with the air?"

It isn't always easy to determine if food or water is safe, but it is easy for customer to know if there is smoke in the air.

Federal Spending Doesn't Work | Chris Edwards | Cato Institute: Commentary

Federal Spending Doesn't Work | Chris Edwards | Cato Institute: Commentary: "In Keynesian theory, the total amount of deficit spending is the amount of 'stimulus' delivered to the economy. Well, we've had deficit spending of $459 billion in 2008, $1.4 trillion in 2009, $1.3 trillion in 2010 and $1.4 trillion in 2011.

Yet despite that enormous deficit-spending stimulus, U.S. unemployment remains stuck at more than 9 percent and the recovery is very sluggish compared to prior recoveries."

"The reality is that Washington is very bad at trying to micromanage short-term economic performance. Its failed stimulus actions have just put the nation further into debt, which will harm our long-term prosperity."

Presidential Winner Market

Do you want to know who will win the presidency in 2012? One good place to look is the Iowa Electronic Market. The market just opened and there isn't much volume yet, but it should be interesting in a while. You can also watch the 2012 congressional markets.

Are you wondering how well they have predicted previous races? Take a look at the graphs for previous elections:
2008 Presidential
2006 House of Representatives
2004 Presidential
2000 Presidential

Show Love to the Merchant Class - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Daily

Show Love to the Merchant Class - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Daily: "We are masters of the universe as customers and as compliant as lambs when acting as citizens. And perhaps that's easy to understand. The government has a gun pointing at our heads. The merchant is trying to persuade us to part with our money in exchange for goods and services. One won't take no for an answer; the other sees no as just part of daily life.

Still, we should be more conscious of the difference, and appreciate what it means. The class of people who have chosen the path of persuasion over coercion are deserving of our gratitude even when we don't buy from them. The merchant class is that which makes everything possible in our lives: our homes, our food, our medical care, our clothing, our air conditioning, our computers, our music listening — absolutely everything that makes daily life tolerable and joyful."

An Amen for Albany | Walter Olson | Cato Institute: Commentary

An Amen for Albany | Walter Olson | Cato Institute: Commentary: "New York City had long leaned heavily on institutions affiliated with major religious groups to provide foster placements for 'their' kids — Catholic agencies making arrangements for Catholic kids and so forth. Lawyers from the ACLU sued, saying this perpetuated religious discrimination. In particular, they argued, it was unfair that Catholic and Jewish kids got the assistance of relatively strong agencies backed by long histories of community philanthropy and volunteering, while other kids, notably black Protestants, were left with whatever foster arrangements the city could cobble together.

In a settlement, the city agreed to scrap the system and cut back religious matching in favor of something more like a first-come-first-served method of assignment, turning the agencies into something closer to interchangeable outposts of a single foster system. Problem solved? No. Outcomes went from unacceptable to even worse as the new rules demoralized and drove away volunteers at the high-performing religious agencies without turning around the others."

The Bin Laden vaccine: Yes, vaccinations are a CIA plot | The Economist

The Bin Laden vaccine: Yes, vaccinations are a CIA plot | The Economist: "All over the world, poor people resist vaccination campaigns in the belief that they are part of a plot by powerful authorities to take advantage of them. The CIA operation in Pakistan turns these fears from crazy conspiracy theories into accurate and rational beliefs."

Wisconsin Schools Already In Line to Save $155 Million Through New Contracts | Scott Walker for Wisconsin Governor

Wisconsin Schools Already In Line to Save $155 Million Through New Contracts | Scott Walker for Wisconsin Governor: "According to 2011 head counts from the Department of Public Instruction, these changes will affect 312,567 students in Wisconsin – saving districts an average of $497.81 per student."

Why Legalize Now? - Mark Thornton - Mises Daily

Why Legalize Now? - Mark Thornton - Mises Daily: "Drug prohibition is the single biggest burden on the criminal-justice budget. It is also a large burden for more than a dozen budgets within the federal government, and it is a growing burden on state and local budgets. The incarceration of hundreds of thousands of nonviolent drug offenders often leads to the breakup of families and the loss of breadwinners, placing additional burdens on social services."

Jet Levy Will Put Workers Up in the Err | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary

Jet Levy Will Put Workers Up in the Err | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Yachts were, after all, owned by 'millionaires and billionaires' who didn't pay their fair share of taxes. Who could object to taxing them a bit more? So Congress passed a 10 percent luxury tax on yachts priced at more than $100,000.

The result was the virtual destruction of the domestic boat-building industry. Sales of luxury boats dropped 70 percent within a year. Several manufacturers went bankrupt. More than 25,000 workers lost their jobs. And because so few boats were sold, the tax didn't even generate much new revenue.

At the end of the day, the millionaires and billionaires were still rich. But thousands of hardworking middle-class Americans ended up out of work. The tax was repealed by a lopsided and bipartisan vote in 1993."

"Obama assumes that if someone is wealthy, his or her money just sits there. In reality, individuals either spend that money or they save and invest it. If they spend it, it helps provide jobs for the people who make and sell whatever it is they buy. If the money is instead saved and invested it provides the capital that is needed to start businesses and hire workers.

Every dollar that the government takes in taxes (or borrows in debt for that matter) is one less dollar that someone has to spend, save or invest."

ObamaCare's Admission of Failure: Waivers on Demand | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary

ObamaCare's Admission of Failure: Waivers on Demand | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Still, President Barack Obama defends his program. Trust him, he says, and everything will work out.

If so, why has the administration issued program waivers hither and yon? After all, if the legislation is going to help people, why deny them the benefits?

By mid-June the administration had approved 1433 waivers to companies, unions, associations, and states covering 3.2 million people."

Can a Playground Be Too Safe? - NYTimes.com

Can a Playground Be Too Safe? - NYTimes.com: "Even if children do suffer fewer physical injuries — and the evidence for that is debatable — the critics say that these playgrounds may stunt emotional development, leaving children with anxieties and fears that are ultimately worse than a broken bone."

"A child who’s hurt in a fall before the age of 9 is less likely as a teenager to have a fear of heights."

"If children and parents believe they are in an environment which is safer than it actually is, they will take more risks. An argument against softer surfacing is that children think it is safe, but because they don’t understand its properties, they overrate its performance."

Study: Kids Safer Driving With Grandparents - FoxNews.com

Study: Kids Safer Driving With Grandparents - FoxNews.com: "The study found that kids may be safer in cars with grandma or grandpa at the wheel instead of mom or dad."

I wonder if they took into account the type of driving that parents do vs. grandparents. Parents may be more likely to drive children in more dangerous traffic (i.e. driving to school during rush hour).

Chinese Ghost Towns? Get Ready to Feel Good About Being American Again

Chinese Ghost Towns? Get Ready to Feel Good About Being American Again: "It appears that a great deal of China’s economic growth has been through the strategy of the government building massive cities and universities that there is no demand for. All of the materials and labor that goes into these massive projects improves GDP. Unfortunately, its led to an estimated 64 million empty apartment units in China that are too expensive for most Chinese families to afford"

Appeals court: TSA must halt airport body scanners | Privacy Inc. - CNET News

Appeals court: TSA must halt airport body scanners | Privacy Inc. - CNET News: "The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., rejected arguments from the Obama administration that the TSA was exempt from laws requiring federal agencies to first notify the public and seek comments."

Georgia Police Close Girls' Lemonade Stand - FoxNews.com

Georgia Police Close Girls' Lemonade Stand - FoxNews.com: "Police in Georgia have shut down a lemonade stand run by three girls trying to save up for a trip to a water park, saying they didn't have a business license or the required permits.

Midway Police Chief Kelly Morningstar says police also didn't know how the lemonade was made, who made it or what was in it.

The girls had been operating for one day when Morningstar and another officer cruised by.

The girls needed a business license, peddler's permit and food permit to operate, even on residential property. The permits cost $50 a day or $180 per year."

US cites national security threat from secrets - FoxNews.com

US cites national security threat from secrets - FoxNews.com: "The U.S. government asked a judge Thursday to order the return of a secret document about a detention center in Afghanistan that it mistakenly gave to a civil rights group, saying its release could frustrate military and intelligence-gathering efforts and do serious damage to national security, including interfering with foreign diplomatic relations."

It sounds like they have a really low bar for "serious damage to national security"

National Security and a Less-Restrained FBI | Julian Sanchez | Cato Institute: Commentary

National Security and a Less-Restrained FBI | Julian Sanchez | Cato Institute: Commentary: "In 2008, we were told these rules would give the FBI the flexibility it needed to 'proactively' ferret out national security threats. Now the FBI says these lax limits on its power are still too cumbersome: The next edition of the bureau's operational manual will give agents leeway to search all those databases with no approval or explanation, without opening an assessment and creating a paper trail."

"According to a 2010 report from the Office of the Inspector General, FBI analysts refused to use an electronic system that would track demands for sensitive phone and Internet records, on the grounds that entering all that data was too burdensome."

"If the FBI thinks you might make a useful informant, agents will be free to dig through your garbage in hopes of finding embarrassing trash that might encourage you to cooperate. And they will be able to do this without first having to show any evidence that you are engaged in wrongdoing."

Time to Ax Federal Jobs Programs | Chris Edwards and Daniel Murphy | Cato Institute: Commentary

Time to Ax Federal Jobs Programs | Chris Edwards and Daniel Murphy | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Federal programs for unemployed and disadvantaged workers now cost $18 billion a year, yet the Government Accountability Office recently concluded that 'little is known about the effectiveness of employment and training programs we identified.' Indeed, many studies over the decades have found that these programs — though well intentioned — don't help the economy much, if at all."

For U.S. Interventionists, "Isolationism" Is Just a Dirty Word | Justin Logan and Christopher Preble | Cato Institute: Commentary

For U.S. Interventionists, "Isolationism" Is Just a Dirty Word | Justin Logan and Christopher Preble | Cato Institute: Commentary: "The term 'isolationist' is little more than a slur. It essentially means someone who thinks the U.S. should engage in fewer foreign wars than the speaker does."

Reining in Frivolous Class-action Lawsuits | Walter Olson | Cato Institute: Commentary

Reining in Frivolous Class-action Lawsuits | Walter Olson | Cato Institute: Commentary: "one of the plaintiffs' complaints against Wal-Mart was that its personnel practices were too decentralized, giving too much discretion to store managers, not all of whom could be trusted to use it fairly. The more you accept that contention, the less a pattern of bias at Store No. 423 says anything about Store No. 187, a thousand miles away."

Walmart and the Right to Discriminate - Rod Rojas - Mises Daily

Walmart and the Right to Discriminate - Rod Rojas - Mises Daily: "Just to give you an example, young male doctors make considerably more than young female doctors. This is the type of statistic that gets very easily manipulated and publicized. However, if you look deeper, you will see that young male doctors work about 500 hours a year more than their female counterparts. Nine additional hours per week is no small difference!"

"In answer to that, the claimants say that, even though only profits matter, when it comes to hiring, male managers only want to hire other males. For some reason the company deliberately tosses aside all economic matters and takes a 25 percent loss just so that the guys can be with their buddies.

This claim is — of course — preposterous. If women could be hired to do the same work for 75 cents on the dollar, the business world would not ignore this difference.

Good businesses cannot afford this type of discrimination in the long run, because other businesses that realize the profit potential will thrive and replace those who ignore economic reality."

Post-Racial Society? Not Even Close | Nat Hentoff | Cato Institute: Commentary

Post-Racial Society? Not Even Close | Nat Hentoff | Cato Institute: Commentary: "According to (a) NYCLU lawsuit, 'Even though nearly 90 percent of people stopped have done absolutely nothing unlawful — as evidenced by the fact that they are neither arrested or given a summons — the NYPD is entering the personal information of every person stopped into a Department database.'"

View From The Porch: I blame TV.

View From The Porch: I blame TV.: "The very mechanisms that keep some hypothetical jackbooted thug from wandering through your front door and rifling through your unmentionables drawer whenever they get the urge are the same ones that mean occasionally somebody who is guilty as sin is going to walk. Like some game of Constitutional Jenga, every prop you knock out of the structure to make it easier to catch the guilty makes it that much more likely that the whole edifice will collapse right on top of you"

The Cruel Wreckage of Socialism - Frederic Bastiat - Mises Daily

The Cruel Wreckage of Socialism - Frederic Bastiat - Mises Daily: "every time we object to a thing being done by government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of education by the state — then we are against education altogether. We object to a state religion — then we would have no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about by the state then we are against equality, etc., etc. They might as well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the cultivation of corn by the state."

Michigan Resident Faces 93 Days in Jail For Vegetable Garden - FoxNews.com

Michigan Resident Faces 93 Days in Jail For Vegetable Garden - FoxNews.com: "The city is claiming that the garden violates a city code which states that front yards must consist of suitable, live plant material to which Bass responds, 'We think it's suitable.'"

Red-Light Camera Feud Reveals Ulterior Motives by Fergus Hodgson

Red-Light Camera Feud Reveals Ulterior Motives by Fergus Hodgson: "The National Motorists Association notes that there are many ways to increase traffic-light safety without prosecution of drivers. For example, research from the Texas Transportation Institute suggests that increasing the amber light by one second reduces collisions by 40 percent. In fact, they found that the average run-in occurs when the light has been red for half a second or less, while almost every right-angle crash occurs after more than five seconds."

The Costs of Compulsory Education - Aaron Smith - Mises Daily

The Costs of Compulsory Education - Aaron Smith - Mises Daily: "The perils of state standards imposed on schools are akin to the shortcomings of centrally planned prices: no amount of research or expertise could possibly account for the infinite variables that define the wants and needs of unique consumers. The opportunity costs of failing to pursue areas of aptitude and interest are simply incalculable, and result in nothing but boredom and frustration for students"

"Compulsory-education laws invite further intrusions into our personal lives. Still, the left-liberal who supports marijuana decriminalization and the conservative who advocates for gun rights often fail to see this obvious relationship. Simply stated, à la carte liberty is veiled tyranny — it is impossible to sacrifice one right without putting others in danger."

Walmart and Discrimination - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Daily

Walmart and Discrimination - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Daily: "Most Americans don't have a particular preference for having a man versus a woman ring up their groceries at Walmart, and so they take claims of sexual discrimination seriously. But Americans on net do have a preference to be greeted at the door of a restaurant by a young, pretty woman, and that's why restaurants cater to that preference. This also explains why movie producers are willing to pay millions of dollars to gorgeous stars, even though less attractive thespians could give 'the same' performance for much less money."

"If analyzed, the reason for this different intuition would boil down to the fact that hiring pretty women as hostesses actually is a 'business decision' catering to customer preferences, whereas hiring pretty women as midlevel executive assistants is a 'personal decision' catering to the manager's preferences. The first practice makes the company more money, while the second squanders it."

"the free market automatically punishes 'bad' discrimination. Unlike under government laws, here there is no chance of a guilty party escaping his or her punishment — and the punishment itself is exactly proportional to the severity of the 'offense.'"

"f it really were true that hundreds of thousands of women were being systematically underpaid by Walmart, then Target and other stores could reap an enormous advantage by offering slight pay raises and inducing them all to quit."

Estonia, the Little Country That Could | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary

Estonia, the Little Country That Could | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary: "By 1987, it is estimated that the Finns were seven times richer per capita than the Estonians. But as a result of undertaking the most radical free-market reforms of any of the transition countries, the Estonians have been gaining on their Finnish neighbors, who also have continued to do well, and now have about two-thirds of the per capita income of the average Finn."

The Isolationist Charge: The Last Refuge of the Scoundrel | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary

The Isolationist Charge: The Last Refuge of the Scoundrel | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary: "McCain's ignorance is striking. He claimed that U.S. intervention stopped a slaughter in the city of Benghazi, even though Libya's Moammar Qadhafi had not committed mass killings in the other cities which he recaptured. And Qadhafi aimed his florid rhetoric at rebel fighters, not civilians."

Welfare before the Welfare State - Joshua Fulton - Mises Daily

Welfare before the Welfare State - Joshua Fulton - Mises Daily: "Mutual aid was particularly popular among the poor and the working class. For instance, in New York City in 1909 40 percent of families earning less than $1,000 a year, little more than the 'living wage,' had members who were in mutual-aid societies.[2] Ethnicity, however, was an even greater predictor of mutual-aid membership than income. The 'new immigrants,' such as the Germans, Bohemians, and Russians, many of whom were Jews, participated in mutual-aid societies at approximately twice the rate of native whites and six times the rate of the Irish.[3] This may have been due to new immigrants' need for an enhanced social safety net.

By the 1920s, at least one out of every three males was a member of a mutual-aid society.[4] Members of societies carried over $9 billion worth of life insurance by 1920. During the same period, 'lodges dominated the field of health insurance.'[5] Numerous lodges offered unemployment benefits. Some black fraternal lodges, taking note of the sporadic nature of African-American employment at the time, allowed members to receive unemployment benefits even if they were up to six months behind in dues.[6]"

China's Hard-Money History - Dan O'Connor - Mises Daily

China's Hard-Money History - Dan O'Connor - Mises Daily: "Trade and commerce between the Chinese and the people of Europe was very minimal until the 1600s. But despite being relatively isolated from each other, the people of these two far-off lands all adopted identical ways for conducting commerce — they used gold and silver as the preferred medium of exchange. Most importantly, gold and silver did not circulate throughout China by edict of the emperor or some central authority. The Chinese chose gold as their money because gold and silver have moneyish characteristics."

Peer Review and "Pal Review" in Climate Science | Patrick J. Michaels | Cato Institute: Commentary

Peer Review and "Pal Review" in Climate Science | Patrick J. Michaels | Cato Institute: Commentary: "What about if my professional advancement is dependent upon climate change monies (which applies to just about every academic or government climatologist)? I'm liable to really like a paper that says this is a horrible and important problem, and likely to rail against an author who says it's probably a bit overblown. May God have mercy on any manuscript that mentions the rather large elephant in the room, which is that we probably can't do much about it anyway."

Never Say Retire by Gary North

Never Say Retire by Gary North: "With half of Americans retiring early, thereby cutting their lifetime Social Security payments, we are building up an army of voters who are heavily dependent on government money to survive. They will find that their income does not allow them to live in anything like the comfort they had imagined. They did not save enough money. Of those few who did save more than 10% of their disposable income, year after year, the last decade has eroded their capital."